How Hormel’s CFO broke the supply chain logjam

When Jacinth Smiley, EVP and CFO at Hormel Foods, was a high school student in Jamaica, she was drawn to numbers. “I had an accounting teacher, and she was just amazing,” Smiley told me. “When I came to the U.S. in 1987, I was already set on going to a university and studying accounting.”

Smiley would go on to become a CPA and have a more than 25-year career as a global senior finance executive. She spent 20 years with General Electric (GE) and was VP and chief accounting officer for LyondellBasell, prior to joining Hormel in April 2021 as group vice president of corporate strategy. 

Jacinth Smiley, EVP, CFO at Hormel Foods / Photo courtesy of Hormel Foods

Smiley officially began as finance chief in January, succeeding Jim Sheehan, who retired from Hormel at the end of 2021. She’s the company’s second female CFO. Jody Feragen, the first, retired in 2016. 

Hormel, headquartered in Austin, Minn., is a major processor and distributor of meat and other food products, with its goods sold in more than 80 countries. The company released its first quarter of fiscal 2022 earnings report on Tuesday. During the first quarter, Hormel delivered record sales of $3 billion, a 24% increase. Organic sales increased 13% for the quarter. Gross profit increased $89 million compared to last year, a 20% increase. 

The growth was driven by strength in refrigerated foods, Jennie-O Turkey Store, and the addition of the Planters snack nuts business, Smiley said in Tuesday’s earnings call. (In June, Hormel acquired the Planters snacking portfolio from the Kraft Heinz Company.)  

I recently talked with Smiley, who also oversees IT, about her first task as CFO, navigating supply chain issues, and mentoring. 

The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

What was at the top of your agenda when you became CFO?

Smiley: What I do for most roles I step into is first, talk to the team about my leadership style, which is one of being very inclusive and empowering. And really, truly ensuring that I cultivate an environment where everybody feels valued and inspired to be at their best. Secondly, I assess the talent because I think that’s so critical to just figuring out, do we have the right folks in the right seat to be able to partner with the business? And, are we aligned appropriately to drive the strategic priorities for the company? Third, establishing our vision. What do we want to be as a team? 

How has the company handled supply chain challenges?

Smiley: From a long-term perspective, it has accelerated some things that we needed to do around automation. But regarding immediate challenges that we’ve faced, from a logistics standpoint, we’ve been flexible with how we actually secure trucks to transport goods. We’ve also literally said to our customers, can you pick up your product? We do have customers with the ability to pick up their goods, but they weren’t. We were the ones delivering the goods to them. 

In terms of finance being a business partner, one of the things we have been doing is really arming the supply chain leader with data that helps him with decision-making, such as, what’s the most profitable product that we should make? Demand is strong, but we now need to prioritize what we run. We’ve had to accelerate how we look at data and use that intelligence.

The other piece, too, is around being innovative on how we get labor from place to place. We’ve actually gone to towns and bused people from where they are living to the plant.

You mentioned the importance of data. Are you investing in technology for the finance function?

Smiley: Yes, absolutely. As generations change and technology continues to evolve, people want to do work that adds value. We actually have a team of about 24 data engineers and data scientists. And part of the priorities that I have for the team is really spending more time simplifying our processes. But, also finding opportunities for us to leverage technology such as RPA, machine learning, and A.I. in order to automate as much as possible to reduce some of the manual work.  

Do you currently have finance professionals who are able to now focus more on being business partners than manual work?

Smiley: We do. And actually part of the organization structure that I’m getting ready to announce soon bifurcates the roles and responsibilities. So, the accounting function will be separated out and report into the Controllership function to allow the business finance leaders to fully partner with the business unit and supply chain leaders. They will be focused on driving growth, arming the business with data and analytics to make strategic decisions and grow the top line and bottom line. Shared services type areas like AR, AP, payroll are ripe for automation and simplification and that will be a focus also help to facilitate the shift.

You have a more than 25-year career as a senior executive, including two decades at GE in senior finance roles. At the beginning of your career, how did you navigate the financial industry that traditionally hasn’t had many women in senior management roles?

Smiley: I was fortunate enough to have really good mentors and more importantly, sponsors who advocated for me in different roles at GE. I can tell you, I never, in my 20 years at GE, truly interviewed for one job. I moved an average of every 18 to 20 months. It always resulted from someone thinking of me for roles that were available and asking me if I had interest. 

An example of taking on a new role was leaving Albany, N.Y., where I was the CFO for licensing. I was asked to take on the integration of a business that they just bought in oil and gas in Houston. I had never done integration. Now, I had to integrate this business, and the people, including implementing SAP. So, I was also the leader from an IT perspective in getting this new system in place. 

It goes back to leaders who say, ‘I think that you’re capable of doing this. I’m willing to make the bet and put you in this role because I think you can be successful.’ And I think that speaks to a very strong leader. A GE executive came to the U.K. when I was working there in the early 2000s, and said to me, ‘I’ve heard great things about you. I want to help manage your career.’ He became my sponsor through my entire 20 years there, and he is a white man. He was even a reference for me for my job at Hormel. 

It’s our role as leaders to make it easy for talent to understand what’s possible in their career path.

Any advice for women on the road to the C-suite? 

Smiley: Be flexible and open to new opportunities, even if it seems like a stretch. As women, we sometimes think we need to be able to check off all the boxes. But our male counterparts, they’re the complete opposite. They might not know how to do nine of the 10 job requirements, but they’ll still take the job.

Another piece of advice—seek feedback. 

What’s your go-to Hormel product?

Smiley: Justin’s Almond Butter. 

Have a good weekend. See you on Monday.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

***Please take a few minutes to complete this short CFO Daily survey.

Big deal

A new study by Thryv Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: THRY) and Payments Dive found younger consumers are driving the trend of digital payments. About 71% of Gen Z and 68% of millennial respondents prefer cashless payment options when paying for larger services like home repairs. These generations are also spending at greater rates. As they have aged and advanced in their careers, their purchasing power has grown significantly, according to the report. The data is based on a survey of 2,050 small business consumers.

Going deeper

In case you missed it, here’s what was featured in CFO Daily this week:

Levi’s CFO on how the company survived the pandemic

Inflation is crushing wage increases

Target’s CFO is laser-focused on talent and increasing wages

Should the SEC require companies to disclose ties to Russia? The business community weighs in

Leaderboard

Here are notable moves:

Jai Agarwal was named CFO at Claros Mortgage Trust, Inc. (NYSE: CMTG). Agarwal will succeed J. Michael McGillis, who will continue in his role as president of CMTG. Agarwal most recently served as the CFO, treasurer, and secretary of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. Prior to joining Apollo, he was CFO and treasurer of CM Finance Inc. Agarwal also held several senior roles at Blackstone’s real estate finance group and Capital Trust, Inc. 

Eric Bauer was named EVP and CFO at Sharps Compliance Corp. (Nasdaq: SMED), a waste management solutions provider. Bauer most recently served as EVP and CFO at Nuverra Environmental Solutions (NYSE: NES). Before that, he served as managing director of mergers and acquisitions advisory in the Midstream Energy Group at Evercore Partners. Prior to this role, Bauer worked in the Investment Banking Divisions at CITI and Lehman Brothers. He also served as a private equity professional at Avista Capital Partners.

Thomas Etergino was named CFO at 1stDibs (Nasdaq: DIBS), an e-commerce company that sells luxury items. Etergino will succeed Tu Nguyen, who will be taking on a new role outside of the company. Etergino will join the company later this month. He joins 1stDibs from Vesta Healthcare, where he served as CFO for the past five years. Previously, he held public company CFO positions at AtriCure and The Street, and at several private equity and venture-backed entities including Refinery29. He also previously served as chief accounting officer and treasurer of DoubleClick.

Sinead Gorman was named the next CFO at Shell plc, effective April 1. Current CFO Jessica Uhl will step down from her role on March 31, after five years as finance chief, and 17 years with the company. Sinead is currently EVP of finance in Shell’s global Upstream business. She started her career as a civil engineer before embarking on a finance career when she joined Shell in 1999. Since then, she has held several increasingly senior finance roles in all Shell’s major businesses, in Europe, North America and latterly globally. 

Mehul Patel was named CFO at Minim, Inc., (Nasdaq: MINM), a creator of WiFi software and Motorola home networking products, effective March 21. Currently, Patel serves as VP of supply chain finance and transformation, for Verifone, a fintech company. Prior to joining Verifone, Patel held the position of finance director for the Telecom Consumer Premise Equipment business unit at Motorola. During his 18 years at Motorola, he was a part of six acquisitions and saw the company’s name change from Motorola Home to Motorola Mobility, a Google Company, to ARRIS and in 2019 to CommScope.

Chad Paris was named the next CFO at The Marcus Corporation (NYSE: MCS). Douglas A. Neis, current EVP and CFO, will retire on May 15, after 36 years of service. Neis will serve as an advisor to the company following the transition. Paris is currently the corporate controller and treasurer of The Marcus Corporation. Prior to joining the company, he served as SVP and CFO at Jason Group, Inc. Earlier in his career, Paris served as audit senior manager for Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Alethia Young was named CFO at Graphite Bio, Inc. (Nasdaq: GRPH), a clinical-stage gene editing company. Young joins Graphite Bio from Cantor Fitzgerald, where she served as senior biotech analyst and head of research. Prior to joining Cantor Fitzgerald in 2018, Young held senior biotech analyst positions at Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. Earlier in her career, she was a research policy analyst and president at Marwood Group. She began her career at J.P. Morgan in the investment banking and asset management divisions.

Ray G. Young, CFO at ADM (NYSE: ADM), an agricultural origination and processing company, will assume the additional role of vice chairman, in which he will provide strategic counsel on major ADM initiatives. Young plans to transition from his role as CFO once his successor is identified. ADM will begin a search for the next CFO, including internal and external candidates with the assistance of a leading independent search firm.

Overheard

"I have made a lot of mistakes since starting Rivian more than 12 years ago, but this one has been the most painful. I am truly sorry and committed to rebuilding your trust."

—R.J. Scaringe, the founder of Amazon-backed EV startup Rivian, admitted in an open letter on Thursday, after online outrage resulting in a double-digit decline in its shares on Wednesday, that he lost fans’ trust by increasing the prices of his two models without warning, as reported by Fortune.